When the Cheshire emerges...

2 Guns (MA 15+)

WHEN corruption within the US government is presented in film, more often than not it has to do with the country’s president. This film by Baltasar Kormakur doesn't touch on that for a change, but still shows corruption on multiple levels to say that everyone’s the bad guy.

Bobby (Denzel Washington) and Stig (Mark Wahlberg) are a team that liaise in deals with Mexican drug kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They rob a bank meant to be containing Papi’s money as a revenge plot for a double-cross before Bobby is found out by his partner to be a DEA agent. Stig’s no different though as a naval intelligence officer, and while the double double-cross is usually a bit of fun, it creates a snowball effect of confusion for the plot that follows.

The script mistakes its flaws as suspense. Characters are introduced without proper explanation, and a failed relationship between Bobby and fellow agent Deb (Paula Patton) serves only to get Patton topless.

Photo: digitaltrends.com

Washington and Wahlberg are a pair constantly at each other’s throats with endless banter that amounts to sheer stupidity. Walhberg’s drawling and chewing is excessive, and reduces him to his failsafe archetype of a wannabe ladies man.

There’s plenty of shoot-offs and menace from everyone involved. Bill Paxton and James Marsden get their hands dirty as government and military officials respectively, while Olmos gets a bit of a laugh out of it all.

What is evil then? In this case it’s everything - the film is not clean in character, story or look. Two guns recur as a motif throughout the film but don’t give us anything to draw from. It’s a mindless journey with typical, but still disappointing, results.

Rating: 2/5

*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) and Rotten Tomatoes from Saturday 12/10/2013

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